Shonda Johnson
Copied from BayNews9
CITRUS COUNTY (Bay News 9) — A Citrus County teacher’s letter writing assignment is bringing her students past to their present.
About 12 years ago Rock Crusher Elementary third grade teacher Shonda Johnson gave her class an assignment: write a letter to yourself setting three goals.
Johnson would later mail the letter back to the former students before they graduated high school.
Laura Gatling, now 21, was in the first class of third graders who wrote letters to themselves.
In her letter, Gatling wanted to travel around the world like her dad, to be healthy, and to graduate from college.
“I’m surprised when I read it,” she said. “How it sounded really intellectual for a third grader. I’m like, I don’t remember acting that way.”
“It was really special to have that connection with the students after all those years,” Johnson said. “And being able to tell them that I was proud of them for graduating.”
Gatling, now finished with college, is now a teacher herself. Soon, she’ll be teaching fifth graders at her old elementary school, just a few doors down from her former teacher.
“Makes me feel old,” Johnson said. “But in the same sense, I had a hand in that and that’s very special.”
Johnson did the letter writing program for eight years. Her last class of third graders just started high school, so there are only four years of letters left.
